Origami Flash Game

Since I cannot draw worth anything, one way I express myself artistically is origami. In the back of my mind, I've had a dream about doing an origami fumetti (comic made with photographs) or origami "puppet" video . . .

Also, in the very very forefront of my mind I've got the dream to have some Flash games made for the TimeFlyz website I'll be bringing out in the next few months (you've seen the results of the beginning of my quest here and here, but unfortunately with those games you have to link back to a web 2.0 site that, frankly, has some pretty awful content that I don't want my kid, parent, and teacher friendly TimeFlyz website to link to, so the search goes on for either a simple game creator that even someone like me could use or some people who have the necessary skill set) . . .

So, here I've found a Flash game using origami!

O-RI-GA-MI is a "trapped in a room" style game, where you must point and click to find the clues necessary to escape. Even though it's all in Japanese (although you can find a translation here, at the JayIsGames blog, if you scroll down to the comments), it's easy enough to do without knowing what the words say.

I find it quite fascinating.

~ Ben

TimeFlyz Gamez 2

And another game, possibly the better of the two.

The music, btw, was generated on Garageband. The graphics are by Adi, from book 1 of the TimeFlyz series and from some conceptual work he did.

Click here to make your own game on Fyrebug.com

Chronotron -- game

This is fun little online game I found:

Chronotron

Those of you who know me know I love time travel. My first "real" comic was a time travel story and one of my most recent projects is a time travel story. So this intrigued me.

The basic premise is your time machine has broken down and you have to fix it using time travel. So on each level, you have to solve a puzzle that involves setting something up, going into your time machine, and coming out again. The past you sets up what you did before, and the present you uses the set up to get to the goal . . . or works on setting up more of the solution so a future you can get to the goal.

Lots of fun. I really enjoy playing it. It involved a lot of forward thinking, cause and effect, trial and error. It's easy enough to understand quickly, but it gets challenging as you go on. It could easily become confusing, but it doesn't. Instead, it's a challenge to figure out the steps you have to take in order to get to your goal.

Last night I played up to level 8 and then went to bed. While I was trying to fall asleep, I was also trying to figure out level 8 (which I did) and this morning I quickly played level 8 to see if my plan would work (which it did).

Of course, now the gears start spinning . . . what could a TimeFlyz game look like? I've been imagining that for a while, but now to think of the possibilities of actual time travel in the game where you work side by side with a past version of yourself. I can't design games, but it's fun to think about.

~ Ben

The Romance of Gaming . . .

This was a sweet little story I caught this morning.

Hacker proposes to girlfriend via casual puzzle game Bejeweled

Awesome. Just awesome.

And I love the line from the story: "A word of advice to any guests, though: don't sit next to two other people wearing the same color, or all three of you will vanish."

~ Ben